Assault On Precinct 13 will always live fondly in my memory as the film my brother told my father was a "Hello Larry" special.

It starred Kim Richards, who played one of McLean Stevenson's daughters on the television show. Unfortunately for my brother's lie, a gang member in a violent scene guns down Richards. Besides learning some valuable curse words that day, I learned that my brother was not trustworthy as he tried to blame me for the "Hello Larry" information.

We did eventually sneak down one night and see the movie and were treated to one of the best action thrillers in the genre. Director John Carpenter was a master and watching a remake of his work is akin to watching a remake of The Birds as envisioned by Carrot Top.

Carpenter's ultra-violent Assault On Precinct 13 was originally homage to his hero and filmmaking deity, Howard Hawks. He intended to make an updated version of Rio Bravo, the 1959 classic western starring John Wayne, Ricky Nelson and Dean Martin.

Rio Bravo featured Wayne as a sheriff who has the brother of the local villain in his custody. This doesn't sit well with the villain, who gathers up his henchmen and then lays siege to the jailhouse. Inside, Wayne has to depend on a crew of misfits to fight alongside him, which includes Dean Martin who plays marvelously against typecasting as a drunk.

The men are anti-heroes. They do what is right, not because they have to but, because it is the right thing to do. Carpenter captures this essence in his remake. In the 1976 version, set in a run down Los Angeles ghetto, the men behind the seige are members of a multi-racial street gang called Street Thunder. They are after the father who avenged his daughter's death by killing one of the gang's leaders. The gang members are faceless villains who will stop at nothing to exact vengeance even if it means walking into certain death. It is like Night Of The Living Dead with street gangs instead of zombies.

In Carpenter's film, he keeps the jailhouse motif but, in this case, it is a soon-to-be-closed police station. It is Precinct 9, which is in district 13. So technically, this film should be called Assault On Precinct 9.

Carpenter's version is highly regarded by such fans as directors Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino. It is a shame that neither of these men had any input on the 2005 version of Precinct 13. A fan's touch might have made all the difference. If you don't believe me, watch the 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead. It is obvious that both the screenwriter and the director had a huge respect for the source material.

The current re-make employs the directorial efforts of Jean-Frano §ois Richet, a man, as the bonus features so proudly state, who "knows the streets." If the producers were so interested in the streets, they should have logged on to MAPQUEST and hired a director who knows how to pay homage instead of shooting action scenes that make little to no sense.

The film follows the formula closely with the corrupt police laying siege to Precinct 13 in an attempt to kill those inside, as well as Bishop, a legendary street gangster. Those on the inside must unite and fend off the evil cops.

The new remake is riddled with plot holes. Let's start at the beginning. After a tacked-on, though interesting and action-packed, opening where we meet both Ethan Hawke's character of a burned-out cop and Lawrence Fishburne's Bishop, we hit our first plot hole.

The bad cops, lead by Gabriel Byrnes, are happy: the notorious Bishop will have to spend his days awaiting his trial at the new precinct because of the holidays. But then, for reasons either never mentioned or just ignored, Bishop is seen boarding a prison transport bus and is headed through a Detroit blizzard on his way to jail.

Now, at this point we have Bishop on a bus that is guarded only by one man plus the driver. The bus is carrying four prisoners including Bishop. A car that is filled with the cops, who want to silence Bishop before he can testify against them and the 33 other corrupt Detroit police officers, is following the bus closely. Why don't they simply take out Bishop on the bus during the blizzard, kill everyone and hide Bishop's body so that it looks like a jail break where Bishop escapes and goes into hiding? What are they waiting for?

There are also several other plot holes that include a forest near the police station where there was none before. How do we know there was no forest? Because the director established that fact several million times before with aerial shots of the precinct snuggled in the middle of a rundown Detroit neighborhood.

The new version lacks the raw energy and visceral thrills of the original Carpenter version. It also lacks the anything-goes feel that the original had. Instead we are left with the clichÃ…Â½ of good cops versus bad cops. A burned-out cop who, a la Diehard, comes to life in a dire situation to become super cop. The new version has a been there, done that feel that the original does not have even though it is almost 30 years old.

Like I said in the beginning, Carpenter's Assault is one of my favorite films. If you never have seen Carpenter's or the source material, Hawke's Rio Bravo, then maybe you might really enjoy this film. If you are a fan of Carpenter's original then you will more then likely be as dissatisfied with this film as I was. My advice: rent the original Assault On Precinct 13 or Rio Bravo and skip this tired remake.

Library Pick: Widow's Peak

One of my mother's favorite films, Widow's Peak, stars Mia Farrow as the town spinster in an Irish village that is dominated by the widows who live up on the hill. Part Agatha Christie, this charming mystery/comedy is the perfect film for those looking for something other than mindless action and violence. Widow's Peak is available at the Osterville Library with your CLAMS card.